“We will replace manicure and pedicure with a finger cutter and a nail biter” – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

The State Duma adopted in the first reading a bill on limiting the use of foreign words in the Russian language. “Kommersant” asked cultural figures, businessmen and other native speakers of the Russian language how they feel about borrowing.

Semyon Altov, satirical writer:

– I am fine if such words have already entered our speech and imprinted in the brain. If we abandon the already familiar “supermarkets”, “sushi bars”, and even more so from the “parliament”, “president” and so on, how much money will be wasted? Not the main problem… And how can we replace manicure-pedicure: “finger cutter” and “nail biter”? Maybe some more letters to replace? Especially from those with which the word begins and everything is clear to everyone what it is about, like “x ..!” or “b…!”.

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Elena Shmeleva, Deputy Director for Research at the V. V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute:

For centuries, the Russian language has been added with foreign words, then got rid of them. Probably two-thirds of the words of the modern language are borrowed, they came in the 9th-10th century or later.

Now there are words that not only annoy me, especially in the professional field, but I know that some of them will disappear from everyday speech. Everything depends not so much on the language, but on the economic, political, cultural influence of countries in the world. There was a time when Russian words enriched Western languages ​​with the words “balalaika”, “pancakes”, “grandmother”, then there were “satellite”, “perestroika” and others.

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Vasily Utkin, blogger:

– And why without them (foreign words. – “b”) manage? Still, it is more important that the interlocutor or listener adequately perceive what they are talking about than a straightforward desire to complete an incomprehensible task – not to use a foreign word. The language was invented for this, so that no matter what words we use, we clearly express our thoughts, feelings and understand each other correctly. Is it worth it to practice replacing, for example, football with a “football” or anything else, if after that they will simply understand me worse or stop reading and listening to me altogether.

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Maxim Krongauz, Professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and the Russian State Humanitarian University, First Deputy Chairman of the Commission for the Development of Higher Education and Science of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation:

There is no alternative to borrowing. This is a given, so the language is enriched. Probably, you can try to just close this thread, but I am against such things. You can’t ban anything until you create a real alternative to new concepts, things, phenomena. Many borrowings later became Russian words.

In general, ideas to ban borrowing arise from time to time, earlier Zhirinovsky was distinguished by this. Although I do not rule out that this attempt may have more significant results. There is not a very correct and even dangerous idea in targeting dictionaries. And there are a lot of things that are not there, and they are published very slowly. If the words immediately fell into dictionaries, it would be another matter.

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Lydia Alexandrova, Seasons shopping gallery development director:

“There is no need to complicate people’s lives, and despite temporary difficulties, we remain members of the world community. There are well-established concepts in Russian that sound simpler and more understandable in the language where they came from. More often it is English: for example, you can say “email”, but it’s easier and easier for me to say “email”. In fashion, there are many concepts and terms, equivalents and analogues, which are either not in the Russian language, or it takes a very long time to select them.

Here we recently changed the name of the shopping gallery from “Fashion Season” to a more capacious and modern “Seasons”, and now we are worried that everything will not have to be returned back.

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Evgeny Bunimovich, Chairman of the Education Commission of the Moscow City Duma:

— The richness of our language has always been associated with easy adaptation of foreign speech, especially in a professional environment. This gave a variety of language. There is “humanism” – an abstract word – and “humanity”. In many countries, this is the same concept, but we have a difference between officialdom and everyday perception. There are many such examples.

Another thing is that in recent years a huge number, perhaps even superfluous words, have entered the Russian language. But somehow we need to call those things that we did not have before? France strictly monitors the purity of the language and is still forced to agree with English terms.

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Oksana Fedorova, TV presenter, actress

I am always for the purity of the language. Language identity is very important, it determines the thinking and, accordingly, the behavioral characteristics of a person and a nation. The language disappears, the nation disappears.

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Kirill Kolesnikov, two-time world champion in parkour, TikTok blogger:

— It is important what foreign words are spoken about and in what context they are used. For example, in parkour, they are simply necessary to indicate jumps – drop, spring, gap, blind, and so on. They do not have monosyllabic counterparts in Russian. Similarly, in IT or digital.

The main thing is not to go too far and not turn your speech into that “runglish”, which turned from the language of astronauts on the ISS into a kind of “French with Nizhny Novgorod”.

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Anatoly Kazakov, selfie restaurant chef:

– There are international or professional, and not just foreign words. For example, in gastronomy there are terms when you describe to the consumer a huge and complex technological process in one word, and he develops an understanding of what it is. And in Russian it would have turned out to be a treatise, the meaning of which would still be understood only by specialists.

When compiling restaurant menus, I always re-read them like an ordinary client, who should understand from four or five simple words how the dish is prepared and how it will look. The same is true in many other professional fields.

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Anastasia Chernobrovina, TV presenter, adviser to the President of the Russian Geographical Society on information policy:

– Borrowing doesn’t bother me. Of course, you can try to stop them by law, but they still won’t leave. We live in a multipolar world, and with the advent of the Internet, the planet has become a large, beautiful and cozy village where everyone communicates in different languages.

Probably, it would be nice to clean up the Russian language, but it is not easy to do this, and what century to start from. We have a more important problem – the level of education and knowledge of the Russian language. I correspond a lot with different people and I see that many do not have a very respectful attitude towards the Russian language. Foreign words do not interfere with literate people, and the younger generation needs to learn Russian better and read more. And then they will decide for themselves whether to use foreign words or not.

Group “Direct speech”